0:06

Welcome to Talking Feds, a roundtable

0:09

that brings together prominent figures from

0:11

government law and journalism for a dynamic

0:13

discussion of the most important topics

0:16

of the day.

0:17

I'm Harry Litman. Jack Smith

0:19

is not messing around. This

0:22

week he turned over a large stack of

0:24

initial discovery to the Trump defense

0:26

team that included far more than

0:28

the rules required, including

0:30

the grand jury testimony of nearly

0:32

all the witnesses who will testify

0:35

against Trump at trial. The

0:37

show of bravado communicated confidence

0:39

in the government's case and readiness

0:42

to go to trial soon. The

0:44

DOJ proceeded to file a request

0:46

for a trial date of December 11th,

0:49

trying to draw an early line

0:51

against exorbitant Trump delays.

0:54

At the same time, it appeared that Smith is working

0:56

with dispatch on a second track, this

0:59

one growing out of the events of January

1:01

6th. Judging from what we can

1:04

discern of his grand jury activity,

1:06

he looks to be readying a conspiracy

1:08

charge relating to the multi-state

1:11

effort to advance false electors for

1:13

Trump in states Biden

1:15

won,

1:16

most ominously for Team Trump.

1:19

Smith seems ready to immunize the actors

1:21

in various states in order to get

1:23

at the conspiracy in the Trump inner

1:26

circle, not excluding perhaps

1:28

the former president himself.

1:31

Several blocks up Pennsylvania Avenue

1:33

from where the grand jury is meeting, the

1:35

Republican majority in the House of Representatives

1:38

put on a sophomoric display that

1:40

stopped just short for now

1:43

of a motion to impeach President

1:45

Biden, with similar motions in

1:47

the wings bearing the names of DHS

1:50

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

1:52

and DOJ Attorney General Merrick

1:54

Garland.

1:56

Contrasting with this week's theater

1:58

was the most vivid and

1:59

wrenching of real-life dramas,

2:03

a slowly developing excruciating

2:05

vigil over the submarine Titan that

2:08

ended with the revelation that the vessel

2:10

almost certainly had imploded shortly

2:12

into its mission, killing the five

2:15

passengers.

2:16

To take us from the high drama of

2:18

accountability playing out in federal

2:21

court to the low burlesque in

2:23

the House of Representatives, I

2:25

am really pleased to welcome three of the country's

2:27

most insightful observers of the

2:29

political scene.

2:31

And they are. Erin

2:33

Burnett. Erin is the anchor, as

2:36

everyone knows, of Erin Burnett Out Front,

2:38

which airs weekdays at 7pm

2:41

on CNN. She also serves

2:43

as Chief Business and Economics Correspondent

2:46

at CNN, and her extensive

2:48

news experience includes moderating

2:51

the 2020 CNN New York Times

2:54

presidential primary debate. She's

2:56

also covered the war in Ukraine

2:59

extensively. Erin, thank you so

3:01

much for returning to Talking Feds. Great

3:04

to be here. A first time guest,

3:06

Tim Miller. Tim's a writer

3:09

at the Bulwark host of the Next Level

3:11

podcast and the show Not My

3:13

Party. Previously he served as Communications

3:16

Director for Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential

3:19

campaign and political director

3:21

for Republican Voters Against Trump. He's

3:23

an MSNBC analyst and the

3:26

author of Why We Did It, a travelogue

3:28

from the Republican road to hell.

3:31

Thanks so much for joining. I'm here for

3:33

the low burlesque. Here you go. Charlie

3:36

Savage, a Pulitzer Prize

3:38

winning journalist and Washington correspondent

3:41

for the New York Times. He's the author

3:43

of two books, Power Wars about

3:45

national security legal policymaking

3:47

in the Obama administration and

3:49

Takeover, which chronicled the Bush-Cheney

3:52

administration efforts to expand

3:54

presidential power. Previously

3:56

he reported for the Miami Herald and

3:59

the Boston Post.

3:59

Thank you very much

4:02

for joining Charlie. It's a pleasure

4:04

to be here. All right, let's start

4:06

with the DOJ special counsel investigation,

4:09

which seemed like it made some major strides

4:11

forward. And maybe even

4:14

that the prospect of a separate

4:16

new indictment came into some focus.

4:19

But beginning with Mar-a-Lago,

4:21

so Eileen

4:22

Cannon, who looks as if she'll

4:24

be sticking around, set

4:26

a very early trial date,

4:29

August 2023.

4:31

We know that won't

4:33

hold, but the Times reported

4:36

about her four other, not a lot of experience,

4:39

criminal trial. She also set a

4:41

very quick date and then pushed it back.

4:44

What do we expect a more

4:46

realistic timeline to be here?

4:49

I would expect this is

4:51

going to be a long slog. Jack

4:54

Smith said he wanted a speedy trial. He

4:57

already turned over a first

4:59

tranche of discovery.

5:00

And my understanding from the filing

5:02

and from talking to people is it's much more than you would

5:05

normally turn over at this stage and

5:07

much more expansive. So there's just trying to take things

5:09

off the table to fight about. But

5:12

there's a lot to fight about. Even

5:14

under the most experienced judge, there's

5:17

months and months probably of

5:20

fighting ahead of us over

5:22

the use of classified evidence

5:25

and what can be shown and what can be substituted

5:28

or redacted and what the jury can see

5:30

versus what the audience in the

5:32

courtroom can see. That all takes

5:34

place under a law called SEPA, the Classified

5:37

Information Procedures Act. And

5:39

there is just a tremendous amount of line by

5:41

line complexity. Here we've

5:43

got 31 classified documents,

5:46

21 of which are classified top secret. The defense

5:49

is going to want all kinds

5:50

of other classified stuff, contextually

5:52

surrounding those things to be turned over. And if she rules

5:55

it away, the prosecution doesn't like it, can

5:58

stop pretrial hearings at that point and take it away.

5:59

it up to the 11th Circuit. So that

6:02

alone is going to consume a long time.

6:04

We also expect the defense to

6:07

mile

6:07

motions of prosecutorial misconduct

6:10

and selective prosecution and so forth. And

6:12

depending on how seriously Eileen

6:14

Cannon, who was a very pro-Trump judge

6:17

in the way she ruled last fall at least, takes

6:19

those

6:20

filings, that could also create

6:23

weeks of motions and

6:25

documents and then even perhaps hearings and testimony.

6:29

And we expect the defense to want to re-litigate

6:32

all the attorney-client privileged

6:34

potentially information that

6:36

went into that indictment. There was a big fight here

6:39

in D.C. before the grand jury

6:41

judge, Burrell Howell,

6:43

who eventually forced Trump's

6:45

lawyers to turn over information that made it into

6:48

the indictment. But Judge Cannon is

6:50

not bound by those

6:51

rulings and so that I would expect they're going

6:53

to be re-litigated. So all that is to say, yeah,

6:55

there's no way this trial is happening in August. It

6:58

could be put off by for a year or more. And then once we

7:00

get close to the election, who knows?

7:02

Yeah, Harry, you know, it's interesting. I was talking to Ty Cobb, you

7:04

know, the former White House lawyer, and you know, he's been right.

7:07

Yeah, pretty much every step of the

7:09

way isn't minced words, right? He said Trump's

7:12

a dead man. But he, I would

7:14

say, would agree with what Charlie's saying, right?

7:16

You could see how you could get to this

7:18

before the election,

7:20

but that wouldn't get you through any sort of an appeals process

7:22

or anything else if you even were to get

7:25

there. So

7:25

no matter what, you end up in this unprecedented

7:27

territory if he is

7:29

the winner of

7:32

what happens in a pardon and what I mean, you

7:34

end up right there again, if,

7:37

if he is the nominee and the winner.

7:39

Yeah. So let me make a few lawyer's

7:41

points about starting with man, ex-lawyers,

7:44

especially if you include the attorney general, have

7:46

not been a very kind group to

7:48

Donald Trump lately. First to Charlie's

7:51

point, it's not just more than they needed. It's

7:54

like the whole motherload

7:56

in particular, all

7:59

the transcripts. all the witnesses

8:01

so it was a move of some

8:03

bravado because normally you don't

8:05

have to even deliver those until

8:08

trial until the witnesses testify

8:10

and they were saying a we've got

8:12

our ducks in a row and B have at it

8:15

do your worst often there's cat and mouse

8:17

games especially with squirrely defendants

8:19

like Trump second it's

8:21

clear that it will move a

8:24

lot and even a non pro

8:26

Trump judge who doesn't have much experience will

8:28

have trouble because they'll get up and

8:29

say if you don't give us these delays

8:32

there's due process issues but the

8:34

two big motions that you mentioned the Corcoran

8:37

motion and prosecutorial conduct she did

8:39

set a date that's pretty quick

8:41

and they're gonna have to bring those see

8:43

if it's gonna be a whole world unto

8:45

itself it's true but

8:48

at least they tee it up soon and the big question

8:50

is will she let them go past

8:53

November oh I'm sorry I just want to say one

8:55

thing to Aaron's point you're right there

8:57

was no way in the world that an appeals are

8:59

done and should he win he doesn't

9:01

need to pardon himself he can simply order

9:04

because it's a non-final conviction just ordered

9:06

DOJ to stand down and

9:09

that's a full stop

9:10

the self pardon is constitutionally

9:13

dubious I think but it doesn't matter

9:15

yeah but they did make this production

9:18

and he does know the whole

9:20

case against him with all the

9:23

witnesses what is sort of in there

9:25

do we think that is especially

9:29

intimidating for Trump just from your

9:32

reporting on who's been in the grand jury

9:34

certainly it's all the grand jury transcripts they're

9:37

clear about that it seems to be a

9:39

lot of recordings of his interviews

9:41

with people including like book interviews

9:44

and so a theme already emerging

9:46

has been Trump saying things about

9:49

the case that could undermine his own defense

9:51

or that contradict good arguments he could otherwise

9:53

make he keeps seeming to admit that he knew

9:55

he had the documents and you

9:57

know making excuses for that which under

10:00

It's a great defense, which is, oh, I didn't know I still had

10:02

these. I thought they'd all been turned over. But he takes that

10:04

off the table by saying, yeah, of course I was holding

10:06

onto them. I had every right to. And

10:08

that all comes in, whether or not he testified.

10:11

But maybe his history as a liar helps him in this

10:13

regard. You know, he says, I was, I've always

10:15

been a fabulous and an exaggerator. Why

10:18

would this be any different? He tried that

10:20

defense out really with Brett, right? Which is basically,

10:22

he didn't say that exactly, but he basically was just saying,

10:24

Oh, I was showing off. It was really just newspapers

10:26

and magazines. And he was talking to Brett Baer about

10:28

the

10:29

war plan tape.

10:30

Hey, I wonder what you thought about that. It's so

10:32

precarious to try to psychoanalyze the

10:35

guy, but a lot of people did see a somewhat

10:37

different Trump in that Brett Baer interview,

10:40

off his game, not sure footage,

10:43

jittery is a word I heard. Did

10:45

it seem to you from your,

10:47

you know, following of Trump over the

10:49

years that he's, you know, rattled?

10:52

You know, Trump is Trump. I always hate that there's a different

10:54

Trump. Trump's been the same Trump since the

10:57

1980s as best as I can tell. That's

10:59

always the excuse that my never again, Trump friends

11:01

start to use. Like, Oh, we saw something different

11:03

in Trump after January 6th. Like, really? I

11:05

didn't, I guess I would just

11:07

say in his answers, the alphaness

11:10

of the answers. I think particularly when on the

11:12

question of where Brett asked him if he was worried, he

11:14

gave a really deep pause to think

11:17

about answering that question before kind

11:19

of then moving into, you know, his, his usual

11:21

regumeral and the BS. And so I

11:23

think that there's reason to believe that he,

11:25

and I think there's a lot of reporting in the Times and CNN

11:27

and other places that he was made to believe

11:30

he was in a much better legal position than, than

11:32

he was by his advisors and

11:34

his actual lawyers and his volunteer lawyers

11:36

like Tom Fitten. I do think the strength

11:39

of the case and the types of people

11:41

that had been traditionally allies speaking

11:43

out about the strength of the case, I don't

11:45

know if rattled is the right word, but maybe shook

11:48

the usual bravado and confidence

11:50

that we see from him.

11:51

You've seen a lot of interviews with him here and did

11:53

seem like same old,

11:55

same old. Yeah. I mean, I'd say, you know, I'm just, obviously

11:57

some of my colleagues reporting is that the mood.

12:00

has had a distinct change,

12:02

Harry, in just the past week. You know, that first

12:04

when this happened, there was the bravado

12:07

and the world is against me and rising to the

12:09

occasion. You know, he goes to the Versailles,

12:11

right? Cuban restaurant, right? And then he goes to his fundraiser.

12:14

And so he was getting fed that oxygen that he

12:16

needs and thrives on. And then all

12:18

of a sudden it's sort of the party's over.

12:20

It's like time to clean up after Thanksgiving

12:23

dinner and you're taking that deep breath. And

12:25

at least from the reporting again, my

12:27

colleagues that the mood is distinctly

12:29

different.

12:30

That he's just more down and he's more sour.

12:32

And you know, Tim, to your point, doesn't mean it

12:34

just doesn't cycle right back through, right? We're

12:36

used to the wave pattern here,

12:39

but

12:39

it

12:40

is in a different place now than it

12:42

was a week ago.

12:43

I mean, he's always at the very top of the charts in

12:45

his vitriol, but it's just seemed like also

12:48

in response to some of the

12:50

criticism he's taking from Republican

12:52

grownup establishment figures like Barr,

12:55

he is wigging out in his

12:57

hyperbolic rhetoric back at

13:00

them. We were always looking during the impeachment

13:02

for certain Republicans of gravitas

13:04

to come out. McConnell came within

13:07

an inch and then receded. Is

13:09

the sort of chorus, I think you can say it's

13:11

a chorus of people saying that

13:13

at least two things, it seems like the case

13:16

has merit and we don't think he

13:18

should be president. Is that, do

13:20

you think,

13:21

not just shaking him up but having a real

13:23

effect on party elites that translates

13:26

to his political fortunes?

13:27

I don't think so. I mean, to me, is what

13:30

we're seeing now materially different

13:33

from what we've saw a million times before after

13:35

saying John McCain wasn't a hero? Yeah,

13:38

go back to 2016. We did this, I

13:40

was out there recruiting other Republican elites to speak

13:42

out. There's this weird element where

13:44

Trump kind of sometimes benefits with Republican

13:46

voters if it feels like the stuffed shirt

13:49

old Republican types go after him. He's

13:51

got to get kind of boomerangs back in his favor with

13:53

voters. So I go, he must be doing something right if

13:56

those Bush era, Karl Rove era guys

13:58

are going after him, right? So the kind of

14:00

mega media world, I think, has

14:03

more of a skeleton key towards

14:05

whether voters are going to respond

14:07

to the criticisms of them, like whether or not the

14:10

grownups, quote unquote, attack

14:12

him. I don't know how much that really matters.

14:14

The non grownups attacking him would probably

14:16

have a better impact with

14:18

the voters in question.

14:20

You know, Harry, Jeff Zeleny's been out in Iowa.

14:22

I think it was Judy Woodruff too over on PBS. People

14:24

have been talking to some Iowa voters and really interesting

14:27

what is showing up. Judy

14:28

did it with Sarah Longwell, my bulwark colleague. They did the

14:30

focus group together, yeah. So one of

14:32

the things when Zeleny was talking to people, you know, you kind of

14:34

get some people say exactly what you're

14:36

saying, Tim, right? So it's the sort of, okay,

14:38

wait, we've seen this before.

14:40

Then some people are saying, okay, well, Trump's support is softening.

14:43

So I don't know how you guys see this, but the latest

14:45

CNN poll has, this

14:47

is post indictment, okay?

14:50

47% of Republicans and Republican leading voters saying he's

14:52

their first choice for the nominee,

14:54

down from 53% in May. You

14:58

can look at that like a move or you can look at that

15:00

like, really, that's it? Softening,

15:02

is that too strong a word? But I mean, that's

15:05

one pole, but it's not showing a massive

15:07

move.

15:07

Tim, you're raising your eyebrow. I mean, six

15:10

points does seem kind of significant. It's

15:12

not nothing. I mean, we saw him bump up the

15:14

other way after the brag indictment, right? So

15:16

there's a meaningful difference there that like

15:19

he's going down versus up following it. It's

15:21

a small hit. And to me, I always use this as baseline.

15:24

It's kind of like wake me up when he's below his winning

15:27

margin from 2016, right? And

15:30

he got about 45 to 47% in 2016. I

15:34

think if we start to see him get down into the low 40s,

15:37

I'm going to start to get interested. And so, you

15:39

know, we'll sort of see whether

15:41

this will move any of the actual Trump

15:43

people off of him. And otherwise, I think it's

15:45

a little bit of noise between people who are

15:48

kind of what I call the soft Trump voters, people

15:50

that like him that are maybe open to another option.

15:52

Those people moving off are kind of the baseline. I

15:55

was just going to say, also, if I remember your scene

15:57

in full correctly, Aaron,

15:59

it's that the points he lost

16:02

went to DeSantis, whose number didn't move.

16:05

It went to, you know, one of the sort of single-digit

16:07

candidates or several of them, which isn't

16:10

going to lose him the election. The

16:12

support needs to rally around someone who actually poses

16:14

a threat or it's just sort of a signal

16:16

of disgruntled more than a threat

16:19

to him. And meanwhile, when you have, you

16:21

know, what's happening in Congress right now, the House is

16:23

trying to nullify

16:26

the two impeachments of him,

16:28

all the signaling within what

16:30

is now Republican elites is still

16:33

defend Trump, defend Trump. And

16:35

there's always a rally around the flag effect

16:38

in how partisanship works, you know, going back to Bill

16:40

Clinton when he was impeached, right? And suddenly all the

16:42

Democrats were like pissed at Republicans

16:45

about it. So as long as he's still

16:47

in primary land, it doesn't seem like this is

16:49

going to throw him off. Yeah,

16:50

I wouldn't be surprised to see in addition to

16:53

trying to take back the Trump back tees,

16:55

do back tees on the Trump impeachment, you're

16:57

starting to see a little bit of now movement

16:59

around a Biden impeachment, which for

17:01

a while, really the kind of quote unquote

17:03

adults in that Republican House were really like, we

17:05

don't want to do this. But the Hunter Biden fall

17:08

out the supposed whistleblowers

17:10

from the IRS, they haven't been named yet saying

17:12

the Hunter was getting a fair, unfairly,

17:14

what,

17:15

lenient deal, I guess. It doesn't

17:17

read that way to me, but that's what these whistleblowers are

17:19

saying that that would maybe be the impetus

17:22

for you're starting to see some of these mid

17:24

bench, MAGA House members starting

17:26

to stir to use that as an impetus

17:28

to go after Biden. And again, all of this, I just

17:31

think this deep state versus Hunter,

17:33

deep state versus Trump, all of that serves to benefit

17:35

Trump in the narrative, in the conversation,

17:38

because it kind of puts all those other candidates out of

17:40

the picture. It's this deep state versus Trump, Biden

17:43

versus Trump element that we're seeing

17:45

continue to congeal

17:45

in the House.

17:46

And we'll move to that shortly. But this

17:49

week when it comes up for the second

17:51

or third time, McCarthy doesn't say, no way

17:53

have you lost your mind. He said, not now. Just,

17:56

it would look a little bad after just censoring

17:58

Adam Schiff. Charlie, I

17:59

I wanted to ask you about

18:02

Trump has come out and very

18:04

expressly said he's going

18:06

to

18:07

politicize the DOJ if he gets

18:10

in, he's going to go after Biden, et cetera. And

18:12

you wrote about his political

18:14

opponents, about their attitudes

18:16

toward the department, which had some fairly

18:19

striking findings. Can you explain?

18:21

Trump came out and said after he got indicted,

18:24

when I get back in power, I am going to appoint

18:27

real special prosecutors, they're going to go after Biden

18:29

and his family, the Biden crime family.

18:32

And a problem with that, of course, is under

18:35

America Garland, there is already two Trump

18:37

appointed prosecutors who were investigating

18:40

Hunter Biden and President Biden's

18:43

handling of classified documents. So

18:45

he was promising to do something that's happening. But his implication

18:48

was, well, they're not real, even though they're people I put

18:50

in place, I'll put in someone who will actually

18:52

put those guys in jail, regardless,

18:55

I guess. And this is a violation

18:58

of a post-Watergate norm that

19:01

the White House, the president, does not get involved

19:03

in individual case decisions

19:06

in the Justice Department,

19:07

going back to when

19:09

the reaction to Nixon trying to

19:11

shut down the Watergate investigation by firing

19:14

a series of people in the Saturday Night Massacre.

19:17

And this norm emerges that you just, the

19:19

Justice Department is hands off. And

19:21

of course, he tried a little bit, kind of haphazardly

19:23

and sporadically when he was in power. He

19:25

was pushing to have John Kerry investigated

19:27

over his

19:28

interference with the Iran nuclear

19:31

deal unwinding. He was certainly pushing

19:33

to have John Durham indict people like Biden

19:36

and Jim Comey and so forth.

19:38

It was angry at Bill Barber and that didn't happen.

19:41

But he now seems to be saying, I'm

19:43

just going to throw that into overdrive. And he's

19:45

got these sort of minions who are out in think tanks,

19:47

people like Jeff Clark, Russ Vaught,

19:49

who are developing- You mail your names for writing. That's

19:52

putting out white papers and things that looks

19:55

like law review articles that are laying the intellectual

19:57

groundwork

19:58

for the notion- that there is no

20:01

actual legal bar to a president

20:03

directing investigations

20:06

and charges. The Justice Department is not

20:08

an independent agency, which may be true as a

20:10

matter of law.

20:12

Things can be lawful but just

20:14

not done. Lawful but awful. You know, there

20:16

is no provision of the Constitution or statute

20:18

that says

20:19

president can't tell the Attorney General to open

20:22

an investigation into something and fire him if he won't

20:24

do it.

20:25

It's just since Watergate especially,

20:27

that's not how this country works. And

20:29

they're sort of unabashedly saying that's how it's gonna

20:31

work if there's a second term. So

20:34

with my colleagues Jonathan Swan and Maggie

20:36

Haberman, we put together this piece where

20:39

and Jonathan Weiser, who are asking

20:41

all the other contenders

20:44

for the Republican nomination, you know,

20:46

what do you make of this? Sort of a two-part question.

20:49

Is it lawful for a president to direct

20:52

the open-air closing of an investigation,

20:54

the bringing of charges, the dropping of charges, specific

20:56

case decisions? And even if it is,

20:59

in your view,

21:00

should a president do that or should a president

21:02

obey this post-Watergate Normans be hands-off?

21:04

And would you pledge to not get involved in

21:06

case decisions if you got in the White House? And you

21:09

know, there were a couple Republicans, Chris Christie,

21:11

Asa Hasidzen, who offered a full-throated

21:13

defense of the way things work in

21:16

this country or have for the last 50 years. Instead,

21:18

it's really important that presidents don't

21:20

do that and they wouldn't do that, etc. Absent

21:23

some extraordinary circumstance like a case involving

21:25

the head of the foreign policy implications, which

21:27

falls outside of that norm. But most

21:30

of his rivals were not willing to defend

21:32

the norm. They either gave us this gobbledygook answers

21:35

that didn't

21:36

actually get to the point, I'm sure, quite

21:38

deliberately. DeSantis has been out there

21:41

emphasizing that a president can

21:43

control the Justice Department and it's not independent,

21:45

which is again perhaps true legally but doesn't

21:48

get at the moral or ethical or norm

21:50

issue. And he just, they're not willing

21:52

to say, with the exception of

21:55

Christie and Hit Hutchinson, that's

21:57

not how things are done in this country and I wouldn't

21:59

do with that. way and therefore, you know, it's

22:01

part of the sort of unwillingness to criticize

22:04

Trump even as they're trying to take him out in the primary, which

22:07

seems to be most of their strategies. I mean,

22:10

I found it of a piece with the supposed

22:12

promise to pardon

22:14

him. And you know, I'm a fuddy duddy from

22:16

DOJ, but I just got to say that,

22:18

yes, there's this

22:20

constitutional veneer

22:23

that you can at least talk about in

22:25

polite company, about a unitary executive

22:27

and the like. But the norm you're talking

22:29

about is every bit as

22:32

axiomatic and in the DNA of DOJ

22:35

for very, very good reasons. So this

22:37

to me seems one of the bulwarks that would

22:40

really take us toward autocratic

22:43

territory. And it's sort of

22:45

chilling that other people, he

22:47

might not win the nomination, but

22:49

with his influence,

22:50

whoever the nominee is, if they're committed to

22:53

these kind of Trumpian ideas,

22:56

then Trumpianism really outlasts

22:58

Trump.

22:59

Tim, I wonder your thoughts about this, because what, how

23:01

the hell is the party generally going

23:04

to just dig itself to me,

23:06

what seems like just this giant hole

23:09

that they just go deeper and

23:11

deeper into with this kind of lasting

23:13

influence, even when he's out of office? Well they're

23:16

not going to dig their way out of it because this is where the

23:18

party is going and has been going. To me,

23:20

the most interesting thing about the

23:22

story that Charlie was just talking about is

23:24

that this big middle of the party, and

23:26

I don't mean middle of the country, I mean middle of the Republican

23:29

party, people that like Trump, that are not

23:31

maybe in the cult, that are

23:33

not my people like Asa Hutchinson, trying

23:35

to stand up to the man. The people that are in

23:38

the center of where the Republican party is right

23:40

now, they have moved

23:43

very notably towards these

23:45

more authoritarian type steps where it

23:48

is not a free markets and free people

23:50

that is not in vogue anymore. That is the government

23:52

should act to defend conservatives against the

23:55

deep state attacks and to push conservative

23:57

policies against companies like Disney, etc. DeSantis

24:00

answer, obviously is the most full-throated

24:02

about how he would control DOJ. But

24:05

the fact that even your Tim Scott's of the world are giving

24:07

mealy mouth answers, Ben Shapiro,

24:09

you know, who is for whatever you think of it is kind of

24:11

seen as like an intellectual kind of, it was more traditional

24:14

Republican and more conservative, but traditional. He

24:16

was out there saying this week, we might need to move

24:18

to a system where only Republicans prosecute

24:20

Republicans and Democrats prosecute Democrats. You know,

24:22

like, like these sorts of things that like,

24:24

we need to be explicitly partisan now because

24:27

the deep state, the government is, is so

24:29

hostile to us. I just think that's really alarming

24:31

that that kind of part of the party has moved

24:34

in a Trump's direction in a very explicit

24:37

way.

24:37

That's your first Republicans, prosecuting

24:39

Republicans are instantly excommunicated, right? I

24:42

don't know exactly how we're

24:44

going to work that out. By definition.

24:47

Tim, you said something that really hit to me because the other

24:49

day, every time you talk about Durham, right,

24:51

you're saying, well, Trump appointed and I just,

24:54

or when you're talking about the three panel of judges

24:56

that overruled cannon back originally

24:58

in the Mar-a-Lago documents thing where they were three

25:00

Republican appointed conservative, we have

25:02

to add that in and

25:04

it just didn't used to be

25:06

something from where I sit that ever came

25:08

up,

25:09

right? Because yes, this is how judges are appointed,

25:11

but people had a faith in the system and faith and

25:14

in the way things were adjudicated and now that's

25:16

gone. So now I'm thinking, gosh,

25:18

well, what role are we playing by every time we

25:20

say.

25:21

A judge appointed by, because the special

25:24

counsels are appointed by Trump. That means it's,

25:26

you know, we're all playing into it.

25:28

You were on the air, like when Charlie Rango was being investigated,

25:30

you weren't saying, and it was a Clinton appointed judge

25:32

that's looking into Charlie Rango. You know what I mean? Like others,

25:35

when you look back in like nineties, 2000s

25:37

kind of controversies like this, that

25:39

was, you're right. That is new.

25:41

And at the highest level, I find it

25:43

heartbreaking at the Supreme Court, but I'll

25:46

just a little news flash here. They're in there last

25:48

week. And if you suss out who's got opinions

25:50

left to give, you see some

25:53

very new appointees,

25:55

that is to say Trump appointees who along

25:58

with Roberts and Alita could.

25:59

be issuing the very biggest cases and we

26:02

kind of know what that means. It's a shame

26:04

we shouldn't know what that means, but, but it seems

26:07

like we kind of do.

26:12

It's time now for our sidebar feature

26:15

in which we ask a well-known person to explain

26:17

an important legal concept in the news.

26:20

And the topic today is immunity,

26:23

which is very much in the news, especially

26:26

with Jack Smith's investigation

26:28

of the false electors scheme. Immunity

26:31

is a device that prosecutors can employ

26:33

to guarantee that witnesses won't

26:35

be subject to criminal penalty for their

26:38

honest testimony,

26:39

therefore removing any need for fifth

26:41

amendment protection and requiring

26:44

them to testify.

26:46

And to tell us more about it, I'm pleased

26:48

to welcome Nimesh Patel.

26:51

Nimesh Patel is a writer and comedian.

26:54

In 2017, he became

26:56

the first Indian American writer on

26:58

Saturday Night Live. He also

27:01

wrote for Hassan Minhaj when

27:03

Minhaj hosted last year's White House

27:05

Correspondents Dinner and for

27:07

Chris Rock when Rock hosted the Academy

27:10

Awards in 2016. Nimesh

27:12

recently released his first comedy

27:14

special, Lucky Lefty, which

27:17

you can find on his YouTube channel.

27:19

So I give you Nimesh Patel on

27:22

immunity.

27:24

What is immunity? Recent

27:26

reports of state and federal investigations

27:29

into Donald Trump's various alleged unlawful

27:31

activities include the detail that certain witnesses

27:34

have been given immunity. For

27:36

example, we've learned that Fulton County

27:38

district attorney Fannie Willis approved

27:41

immunity for several Georgia officials who

27:43

participated in a scheme to replace

27:45

genuine electors with phony counterparts

27:48

loyal to Trump.

27:49

So

27:50

what exactly is witness immunity? Who

27:52

gets it and what role does it play in

27:54

the criminal justice system? Witness

27:57

immunity is a legal protection that shields

27:59

witness. from being prosecuted for truthful

28:02

testimony they provide. Immunity

28:04

is most typically a way for prosecutors to

28:06

get around an individual's assertion

28:08

of her Fifth Amendment rights. The Fifth

28:10

Amendment, of course, protects against compelled,

28:13

incriminating testimony in a criminal case.

28:16

With immunity, a person's testimony can

28:18

no longer be used against her. Consequently,

28:21

the Fifth Amendment shield no longer applies

28:23

and she can be required to testify truthfully.

28:26

Immunity comes in one of two forms,

28:29

use immunity and transactional immunity. Use

28:31

immunity, also called derivative

28:34

use immunity, prohibits the prosecution

28:36

from using information from a witness's testimony

28:39

against the witness in a criminal case.

28:41

Transactional immunity provides blanket

28:43

protection from prosecution for the crimes or

28:46

the transaction a defendant testifies about.

28:49

Witnesses will often seek to secure immunity

28:51

in exchange for testimony. Prosecutors,

28:54

in turn, are cautious about giving it out

28:56

and usually do so only if it's the sole

28:59

way to procure important information. In

29:01

the federal system,

29:03

grants of witness immunity are, by statute,

29:06

always grants of use immunity.

29:08

So, in granting immunity, the

29:10

federal government agrees not to use

29:13

any information the witness provides in her testimony

29:15

against her.

29:16

But federal prosecutors can still prosecute

29:18

the witness for the crimes or transactions she

29:21

testified about, so long as they do so

29:23

without relying on any information the witness

29:25

provided or any information that derives

29:27

from the witness's testimony.

29:29

A grant of immunity extends only to truthful

29:31

testimony. If an immunized witness

29:34

lies in her testimony, she can still

29:36

be prosecuted for perjury. For

29:38

Talking Feds, I'm Neemesh Patel. Thank

29:41

you for that explanation, Neemesh Patel.

29:44

Neemesh will be going on tour in the U.S.,

29:46

U.K., and Canada later this year.

29:49

You can find show and ticket info

29:52

at FindingNeemesh.com.

30:00

And now a word from our sponsor, the

30:02

American Civil Liberties Union. Hello,

30:05

I'm Sandra Park, a senior attorney with

30:07

the ACLU Women's Rights Project.

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and stable housing,

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visit aclu.org.

31:08

All right, it is now time

31:11

for a spirited debate, brought

31:13

to you by our sponsor, Total Wine

31:16

and More. Each episode,

31:18

you'll be hearing an expert talk

31:20

about the pros and cons of a particular

31:23

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31:25

and beverages.

31:27

Thank you, Harry. In today's spirited debate,

31:29

we unbottle the truth about wine. Is there

31:31

really a right or a wrong way to enjoy it? Wine

31:34

drinkers near and far have lived by a certain

31:36

set of written yet unofficial rules

31:38

to follow, particularly when it comes to pairing

31:41

wine and food. You've heard a couple of them before.

31:44

White wine pairs with seafood, red wine

31:46

pairs with big old juicy steaks. And

31:48

while we like to think of these more as guidelines than

31:50

rules, some suggestions actually

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do serve a higher purpose, to help your wine

31:54

get the most from your dish and vice versa.

31:57

One pairing that's not quite as obvious

33:59

and to the extent McCarthy tried to be

34:02

an adult in the room, right? To the extent that

34:04

he had, okay, I'm going to feed

34:06

my, I'm going to go give some red raw meat

34:08

to Marjorie Taylor Greene or the Lauren Boberts

34:10

and, you know, they're in their own

34:11

thing now, right? I don't want to invite them to

34:13

the same party. But then I'm going to be an adult in

34:15

the room and other things, right? That this shows that

34:17

that's, that you're

34:19

starting to slide down a slope.

34:21

And where do you get? I think it's interesting what Tim just

34:23

raised that he's hearing that maybe some

34:25

of the discussion on impeachment of Biden is gaining

34:27

more steam than it had been. And maybe

34:29

it is McCarthy, Tim, Charlie

34:32

realizing, hey, I thought I had more control

34:34

of this or control in a different way. And maybe I don't.

34:36

So that's going to change the direction we go.

34:38

Certainly the fallout from his ushering through

34:40

the debt ceiling lifting deal, right?

34:43

It was a complete freak out by the far right in

34:45

the ground, the house to a halt. We already know

34:47

that he had to make some promises just to

34:50

get through the speaker vote.

34:51

That's what they want. Maybe he'll think of

34:53

it. Well, you know what, an impeachment of Biden is symbolic.

34:56

It'll go nowhere in the Senate. The country

34:58

won't fall. I'll appease them. I

35:00

mean, I can see the logic of that actually.

35:02

So it's related to a couple of things. One is the

35:04

debt deal, which I have to give Kevin credit

35:07

for that. That went a lot smoother

35:09

than I expected to. I mean, maybe it's a low bar to

35:11

step over, but the types of folks he was

35:13

dealing with, I thought that the risk there was a lot greater

35:15

than it ended up being. But he had to make

35:17

those sacrifices, which made some folks unhappy,

35:19

even though they eventually essentially allowed that

35:22

to go through. And then in the meantime,

35:24

what Comer and Jordan have been doing has been

35:26

basically a bust. Hasn't been Benghazi 2.0.

35:29

It's been a nothing burger. So there's this

35:31

angst. The whistleblower got lost

35:33

somewhere. Yeah, the whistleblower. They might be dead.

35:35

It was here just a minute ago, right? They

35:38

need to get a scalp, right? They need to get

35:40

their pound of flesh. And so

35:42

I think now this Hunter Biden situation

35:45

is going to be the next place that they look and trying

35:48

to rope Joe into that, et cetera.

35:50

So I mean, what I think you guys are suggesting and

35:52

make sense is it's not a broader political

35:55

agenda. It's more a sort of intramural

35:58

one with a kind of payback. or show

36:00

who's boss to McCarthy

36:03

after the disappointment that they seemed

36:05

unable to do anything in the debt crisis. You

36:07

know, Schiff, it was interesting to me, he went

36:10

straight for McCarthy, right? In

36:12

addition to calling it a badge of honor and

36:14

standing in the well, he

36:17

said that this shows McCarthy has no

36:19

control. So I found

36:21

it interesting that he would try to put pressure

36:24

that way. And the easy target for him

36:26

obviously is more Marjorie Taylor, Green

36:28

or Boebert. And he tried to make

36:31

it about McCarthy. Did

36:33

that strike anybody else as intriguing?

36:36

I thought it was a good week for Schiff. I don't know about

36:38

that particular choice. A lot of viral

36:40

videos giving John Durham

36:43

the business. John Durham made that easy for

36:45

Schiff by just not understanding like

36:47

basic facts about what happened

36:49

in the initial Russia investigation that he was

36:51

supposedly investigate, the lead investigator

36:54

on. And so between that and then just

36:56

this negative partisanship world we're in, which

36:58

is like if they're after me, that I must be doing

37:00

something good. Schiff I think was just

37:02

able to leverage both those things, you

37:05

know, as he's in a

37:06

Senate primary. Yeah, they sure didn't hurt

37:08

his chances in what's a really tough primary,

37:10

right? More it seems like McCarthy's coming after

37:12

him, the more he can make that case that I'm

37:15

the kind of fighter that you guys want in a

37:17

top two democratic race.

37:19

Yeah, what do you think in general confronted

37:22

with this kind of romper room on

37:24

the other side? Should Dems just be

37:26

sitting back and watching

37:28

it play out? Do they try in any way

37:31

to kind of steer the

37:33

bull one way or another?

37:38

Well, they've got their own questions. We'll see how the polls

37:40

keep coming out. But I mean, the rise of RFK

37:42

Jr. and his sort of stubborn 20%, whatever

37:44

that is, whatever that

37:47

protest vote or whatever it

37:49

is, it's there.

37:50

So

37:51

when you talk about a romper room of

37:54

politics, I mean, they,

37:56

I guess it would be hard in that context

37:58

to just take the high road and say, and be

38:00

quiet, everything's just gonna be fine for them.

38:02

I agree with that. I think the Democrats,

38:05

this takes us outside of the legal elements of

38:07

the discussion just into the raw political, but

38:09

if I was them, I would just be leaning to this conversation

38:11

about how the Republicans aren't able to actually do anything. To

38:14

me, I think that's a very safe

38:17

place for the Democrats to contrast with Republicans

38:19

on. I think that the media and just

38:22

the Republicans own dysfunction, MTG

38:24

calling Bober at the B word, and

38:27

all of that is gonna like make Republicans

38:29

seem crazy on their own. If I was Democrats,

38:32

I think they've done a really poor job of saying,

38:34

okay, it's not just that they're crazy, they're

38:36

not effective at trying to help you. I

38:38

think they've done a poor job of campaigning on

38:41

the accomplishments of the Biden years, and then

38:43

also using that as a contrast

38:46

with just, as you call it, the Republican romper

38:48

room. I mean, really, besides the debt deal, they've

38:51

been barely able to do anything. Like they can't even

38:53

get consensus among themselves

38:55

and just sort of paint them as they're obsessed with

38:57

Hunter Biden, they're

38:59

obsessed with these random things that don't impact

39:01

your lives at all, and it's preventing

39:04

us from actually trying to solve problems that

39:06

you do care about. That seems like a safe

39:08

place for the Democrats to be, and to

39:10

be focusing their messaging.

39:12

Here's the thing that really wig me. I

39:14

guess this is very pointy-headed, but Durham's

39:17

testimony, the actual censure

39:20

against Schiff, each of them seemed

39:22

like Orwellian

39:24

would be the fancy pants word, but I mean,

39:26

they were literally trying to reverse

39:29

facts, like rewrite history.

39:32

It's the ultimate, history's the propaganda

39:34

of the victors or whatever. They actually

39:36

want to dispute facts

39:39

that I thought had been long since

39:41

established, and you thought they might go Trumpy

39:43

and going forward, but they're so

39:46

backward-looking and so focused

39:48

on rewriting things, it seems to

39:50

me.

39:51

They never accepted the facts to begin with. That was the whole point

39:53

of Durham. They were hoping that Durham

39:55

was going to create a new, Kelly-Ann

39:57

alternate facts, where this... investigation

40:00

was actually a plot by the Democrats

40:02

in the deep state to frame Trump. I like

40:05

that was their theory of the case. It's what they've been pushing

40:07

for eight years. If you read conservative media,

40:09

if you read the Federalist, you're quite familiar

40:11

with that alternate history. And

40:14

they were hoping that Durham was going to be able to put that forth.

40:16

And because it was not true

40:18

and because Durham seems pretty incompetent,

40:21

those two things made it very challenging for them to do

40:23

so.

40:23

He's the latest of everything. Trump touches

40:26

dies, though. He used to be pretty respected in

40:28

DOJ.

40:29

I thought of the Durham hearing, the interminable

40:32

six hour during hearing. You know, it

40:34

was one thing to see Adam Schiff tussling

40:37

with him over

40:38

whether he had even a basic command of

40:40

the facts of the real Russia investigation. And

40:43

much of the hearing was this very predictable partisan,

40:45

you know, alternative universes where,

40:48

yeah, the

40:49

Democrats were saying that

40:50

Russia investigation was necessary and justified.

40:53

Look at all this stuff it found in the Republicans

40:55

were saying it was corrupt in the political hijab

40:57

and whatever. So the thing that really

40:59

broke against that and was interesting to me

41:02

was Matt Gaetz's questioning of Durham

41:04

because Gaetz, I think, articulated

41:06

the rage against Durham that I see online

41:09

among the sort of MAGA Twitter when

41:11

they're not in the same room as Democrats and

41:14

they're talking to each other. Extraordinary

41:17

disappointment that Durham didn't

41:19

prove anything. They really

41:22

drank the Kool-Aid that he was going to prove

41:25

a deep state conspiracy. He was going to put Jim

41:27

Comey and Andy McCabe in jail. He was going

41:29

to put Obama and Biden

41:31

and Clinton in jail. He was going to prove this

41:33

whole thing was a, you know, a Western

41:36

intelligence plot to get Trump

41:38

and he tried. He tried. It's

41:41

not so much that he failed us that he was

41:43

set up to fail, right? Because it just none of

41:45

it was all just sort of invented out of Trump

41:47

himself, to some extent, creating this alternative

41:50

fact pattern for his supporters to

41:52

buy into that this was just a deep state plot

41:54

and inspiring on him. And so forth. There

41:56

was never any there there. So then there was

41:58

nothing for him to find.

41:59

Like, what was he supposed to do? But Matt Gaetz came

42:02

at him hard. He's like, well, you're part

42:04

of the coverup, Durham. You're the Washington

42:06

general's being paid to lose to the Harlem

42:08

Globetotters. This whole thing, it was a

42:11

particularly hilarious line where it was like these things were folding

42:13

in on top of each other where he said, well, your

42:16

report that finds these sort of little

42:18

faults with the FBI confirmation bias,

42:21

wasn't even political bias, that's just inoculation

42:24

against the real truth out there. And then he catches

42:26

himself thinking about inoculation as something

42:28

that works. Of course, inoculations

42:29

actually make things worse because in that sort of anti-vax

42:33

ways, sort of bleeding into his comments.

42:35

That was the most interesting part of the hearing. It was like the

42:37

rage that didn't work. Right, and the rage,

42:40

of course, because if facts don't fit, there's

42:42

only one explanation of some kind of

42:44

political malfeasance. So just one last

42:47

question. I mean, it was good entertainment value.

42:49

Everyone, wow, Marjorie Taylor Greene

42:51

and Boebert are going at it. But does

42:54

it reflect some broader tension

42:56

within the conference

42:59

or even

42:59

the Freedom Party? Is

43:02

there schisms that we don't see from

43:04

here where we paint them all as a kind of monolithic

43:07

force?

43:08

My take is that the Boebert and MTG thing

43:10

is probably personal

43:12

dispute, fight for attention. But the

43:15

within MAGA schism,

43:17

it will be something that we continue to

43:19

be interesting to watch, right? Because this is

43:21

really the first time that some of these folks

43:24

have an off ramp. And there's a percentage

43:26

of people who have been doing the Trump thing

43:28

as kind of play acting. They're going

43:31

along with it because they feel like they have

43:33

to, but they think he's a buffoon. We've seen a million

43:36

books have been written about all the conversations to

43:38

this effect, right? And so DeSantis gives them

43:40

an off ramp that they never really had before. Biden

43:43

was not a legitimate off ramp. They felt

43:45

like impeaching and convicting Trump was not a legitimate

43:47

off ramp because there would have been a revolt among voters.

43:49

The DeSantis is an off ramp. So I do

43:51

think that there might be some growing intra

43:54

party tension under that veil,

43:56

which is like we don't, there's certain of this stuff we don't

43:59

have to do anymore. Like why are you forcing

44:01

us to continue to do this Trump stuff when we have this other

44:03

option? And so some of that might bubble

44:05

up, but I don't know that the MTG and Boebert

44:08

thing is really a reflection of that I think that's just between

44:10

the gals. Just what it looked like. Yeah

44:13

Junior high. Um, all right I

44:16

wanted to leave a few minutes to take some

44:18

stock of probably the biggest certainly

44:20

the most tragic

44:22

news of the week namely the death almost

44:25

certainly by Catastrophic implosion

44:27

not long after setting out of the Titan

44:29

submarine. It put me in mind

44:32

a little I'm I'm old I must

44:34

be the oldest guy of the four of us but

44:36

of the very high profile and wrenching

44:39

explosion in 1986 of the challenger

44:41

which you know, it killed everyone aboard

44:43

how can we

44:46

and what's the role of You

44:49

as media folks to process

44:51

such a catastrophic event. How do

44:54

you even Present

44:56

it in real time,

44:58

you know, it's funny when it happened

45:00

There's been I know people calling

45:03

out the double standard or

45:05

for lack of a better word, right? I mean you've

45:07

got these migrant ships, right

45:09

that go down and 800 people are on them and

45:11

people are drowning and dying these horrific

45:14

deaths and

45:15

People don't pay attention. Okay, and

45:18

that is a horrible

45:20

thing and then something like this happens and then you know We've

45:22

all seen the criticism Well

45:24

a billionaire and four millionaires go down

45:27

and everybody's paying attention

45:28

So I understand that criticism, but I will say

45:30

there was something about it just the fascination

45:32

that everybody had I

45:34

mean, I don't know anybody who wasn't fascinated by this

45:36

from all walks of life from all

45:38

interests and all backgrounds and You

45:41

know, there's something about the fascination with the

45:43

fact that people would choose would choose

45:45

right? They weren't there by desperation or you know

45:47

that they could write in the world right

45:50

and they chose to do this to do this exploration

45:52

to go and I think in some

45:55

way that contributed to our collective

45:57

fascination but

46:00

I'll also say there haven't been, you know, I can

46:02

think over the past few years, only a few stories like

46:04

that that really capture people's, in

46:06

such a mass way, people's attention

46:09

and care of what happened. And MH370

46:11

in its own way was similar to that for a while.

46:13

And we all were hoping, right, that this would have a different ending,

46:16

even though, you know, if you really thought about it,

46:18

I think everybody sort of knew in their heart how this

46:20

happened.

46:21

But there was just this fascination. And maybe it's something

46:23

about that, that exploration and who

46:26

in the world would choose to get in a thing like

46:28

that and go do that, right? Who would

46:30

do that? And these people did it, and

46:33

they took that risk. And it has had this horrible

46:35

ending, but it was fascinating.

46:37

My interest was mainly limited to just

46:40

how you couldn't pay me $250,000 to get into that

46:42

thing. I agree.

46:44

I just like, you know what I mean? Like, to me, like that,

46:46

it's like the most unimaginable leap,

46:49

like horrific death, like it is

46:51

the stuff of nightmares. And I

46:53

think that that channels people's imaginations

46:56

in a way that some of these other stories don't.

46:58

It's the opposite direction, literally. But we're

47:01

seeing the emergence of space tourism for millionaires,

47:04

big time millionaires, not mere millionaires.

47:06

And you can imagine that sooner or later something

47:09

challenger-like is going to happen, which

47:11

will have a very similar framing

47:13

around it. It's like, well, why are you doing that in the first

47:16

place when you could be on a beach somewhere? Yeah.

47:18

I just felt the drama, it's

47:21

ironic isn't really the right word, but the

47:24

implosion probably had happened before we'd even heard

47:26

of it. But it was also the high

47:28

drama of people immediately

47:31

facing their own death.

47:33

And I think it was impossible

47:35

not to imagine what it would be like down

47:38

in that vessel. Let me just ask,

47:41

especially you, Aaron, because you had to

47:43

be out there and on TV and covering

47:46

people. How does a network

47:48

or a news agency try

47:51

to go about reporting

47:53

on an unfolding tragedy of that

47:55

nature?

47:56

Yeah. I mean, I guess part of it is that we're

47:58

all holding out hope, even. though again realistic

48:02

right but you're trying to walk the line of not

48:04

being unreasonable in in

48:06

the way you talk about it and think about it and

48:09

then even afterwards you know when we finally

48:11

found out you know even in the same space of a few

48:13

minutes you know you're talking about the construction

48:15

of the whole and the carbon fiber and whether that was irresponsible

48:18

at more approvals and then two minutes

48:20

later you know I'm talking to the

48:22

steps on us of Paul Henry Narjali

48:24

right been down there 35 times

48:26

right incredibly experienced diver you know

48:28

talking to to his stepson

48:30

he's talking about the death of someone who is so important

48:32

in his life you know so it's like those things

48:35

being side by side tonight I'm speaking

48:37

to the grandfather of the Pakistani

48:39

son right so there's the father and the son and then their

48:41

father slash grandfather is coming on

48:43

you had some great experts were they telling you

48:46

during commercial break you

48:48

know what it's it's really bad at

48:50

first yes one of them

48:53

was saying that he'd heard about some

48:55

kind of sound or an implosion and he didn't have

48:57

side knowledge on the fact that the US Navy had picked

48:59

it up but it sort of heard that but then

49:01

when the knocking came that

49:03

obviously not

49:05

kind of like background noise or something

49:09

but when that happened they

49:11

all actually were hopeful

49:13

and I think that was the thing that really actually

49:16

touched me to what you said that people

49:18

who know I mean people Tim to your point

49:20

who do choose to go down there who are like this is

49:22

what I want to do

49:24

they did have hope even

49:26

though they knew more no more than we'll ever know

49:28

right they knew what most likely

49:30

certainly it happened and they still clung to hope

49:33

that's just human beings that's what you do yeah yeah

49:35

I'm sorry to you listeners

49:38

to end on a on a bit of a sober

49:40

note but it was such an important point and I really

49:43

wanted to get the thoughts of people who cover

49:46

news day in and day out

49:50

we are out of time thank

49:52

you very much to Aaron Tim

49:55

and Charlie and thank you very much listeners

49:57

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